Interstitial - The Dragon Engine

Monday will see a review of Andy Remic's intriguing The Dragon Engine. Action packed fantasy, with a lot of blood, and some nice moments of genuine emotion from the characters. More tomorrow!

Ultima - Stephen Baxter

Ultima is the sequel to Stephen Baxter’s excellent and imaginative Proxima. It starts right after the close of Proxima. And where Proxima dealt with space, and society, and interstellar colonisation, Ultima throws itself full force into a discussion of divergent universes.

In terms of setting, this means that both the characters and the reader jump around a bit. Both they and we find ourselves in a universe where the Roman Empire never fell. Baxter manages to do quite a lot with this. He delves into the social structures of a world divided into three monolithic powers, exploring with gusto the idea of a civilisation which never developed electricity, but managed to brute-force a means of space travel. The Romans, as Baxter paints them, are efficient, loyal, brave - and casually brutal. Their world is one in which environmental catastrophe is remarked upon but largely ignored. Where the reality of global conflict is never more than a few ill-chosen words away. It’s a more fragile world than any of those we saw in Proxima, but it manages to feel more alive than all of them – Baxter’s world of Rome is one with a raw vitality, mixed with an appetite for danger.
Baxter also explores several other alternate-history thought experiments, and they’re certainly interesting – I won’t get into details here to avoid spoilers. With that in mind: Baxter has an eye for vivid cultural depictions, mixed in with imaginative spectacle. I wasn’t always convinced by some of the directions of these alternate timelines – the aforementioned Roman rockets, for example, seem to run on clockwork and hope, and there’s a remarkable lack of military innovation. That said, given an infinite number of universes, it’s going to happen somewhere (which is one of the points of the text), so I won’t complain too much – it was simply a little jarring.

Many of the characters in Ultima will be familiar from Proxima. That said, Baxter isn’t afraid to remove some of those, or to add in new characters from the new reality. The most interesting thing here is the approach to time – there are swathes of it which are simply elided, the characters aging between narrative spaces. It’s an interesting approach, and one that works here. Parts of these chronological gaps are gradually revealed in the text, and give the reader insight into unfamiliar dynamics which are occurring on familiar characters. The changes in these characters are gradual, and entirely believable – and there’s a lot of opportunity available to delve deeper into each of them, and what makes them tick; it feels like in amongst the towers of reality-altering scope, the characters are our lodestones – and that they also change as the world around them does, makes them all the more real. 

There’s a few new characters as well. They don’t get as much space to develop as our more familiar travelling companions, but there’s enough. After a while, the feel of new and old falls away, and you’re left with people – flawed, often unpleasant people, but entirely believable, feeling humans, rather than narrative ciphers. There’s some wonderfully emotive moments strung through the text, and by the close, the characters have a degree of emotional heft – their various conclusions having almost physical value.

The plot…well, it spans universes. There’s a lot going on. There’s a relentless quality to Baxter’s prose, something which kept me turning pages – a desire to see how it all turned out. How it would end. In between that end and the explosive beginning, there’s quite a lot going on. Battles. Family squabbles. Personal trauma, and hope. Efforts to delve into the mysteries of the inscrutable hatches, and their builders. A journey which continues, one step at a time, a quest for both understanding and a sense of closure for the characters. The text carries so much within it, and it won’t let go of the reader. Instead it asks questions, and even answers some of them. In the end, Baxter’s universe is a grand one, and the unanswered questions are perhaps the best ones.

If you’ve not read Proxima, it’s probably best to do that first, to provide the necessary context. If you’ve already read Proxima, this is certainly worth picking up, to see how the duology wraps up. It’s also a well-crafted sci-fi novel, which takes big ideas and goes with them in unexpected directions – with interesting characters in a clever setting. 

Interstitial - Ultima

Tomorrow will have a review of Stephen Baxter's multiverse-spanning Ultima. It's the sequel to his excellent Proxima, which was reviewed earlier in the month. It has a lot of promise, a few minor flaws - and packs a serious narrative punch. More tomorrow!

Empire Ascendant - Kameron Hurley

Empire Ascendant is the second in Kameron Hurley’s ‘Worldbreaker’ series. In quick summary, it’s great. It’s a book which wants to ask complicated questions. It’s a book which requires engagement, and rewards investment. It’s a book rife with raw emotion, much of it in some way traumatic, and all very genuine. It’s a book with some excellent battles, and a refusal to look away from the consequences of those conflicts, both at the political and personal levels. There’s personal drama, there’s sprawling politics, there’s even some excellent battle scenes. Hurley has put together something with an incredible scope, and managed to make the narrative feel tight, focused, and pitch-perfect.

The setting is diverse, and  that’s reflected in the environments presented to the reader. Hurley gives us frozen wastes, a lush semi-jungle populated by carnivorous plants, cities under siege,  and an entire world, dying beneath a shattered star, amongst others. Each of these environs feels distinct from the others, a star in Hurley’s carefully crafted geographical firmament. At the same time, each locale feels lived in, and real – often horrifyingly so. There’s some excursions to new environments outside of the first book, and it’s always nice to see somewhere new – but n area where the prose shines is in making each of the places the reader is exposed to feel authentic.

It’s always felt to me like the core of this series is the characters, and here, again, Hurley is on very good form.  The existing cast of characters from the first book was quite large, and we get a few new people to read over as the text goes on. But what characters they are. There’s a determination here to not only present characters as people, but to approach that personification in an unflinchingly honest fashion. Indeed, one of the themes of the text seems to be around the creation of monsters, both physical and mental. Individuals find themselves working on behalf of a nebulous greater good, doing things which appall them – in an effort to combat adversaries who are also working for their own ideals, and performing atrocities of their own. The characters are in a turbulent gyre, where their own good intentions lead inextricably toward horrors. At the same time however, they remain sympathetic – vulnerable, damaged, struggling people.

Speaking of damage, this is another place that the narrative performs strongly. We’ve seen characters perform atrocities. We’ve seen characters struggle with breaking the customs of their own society. Empire Ascendant portrays both of these well. But it’s not afraid to look at the consequences, at the mutability of identity, or at the ghosts that characters carry on their shoulders.  The world of Empire Ascendant has rapidly become nasty, brutal and short – and many of the characters involved are trying to rapidly adjust to that, often with a great deal of difficulty. The kind of individual and social pressure that a character is under is something that the author portrays well – some characters are increasingly wrung out and  look to be teetering on a psychological edge; others are forced to deal with more immediate changes of circumstance.

The takeaway here is that the characters in this book, like it’s predecessor, are disturbingly, wonderfully believable. Not two dimensional, but real men and women on a page, acting with the best of motives, having their society fall down around them.  A great many of them aren’t especially likable, but can be empathised with, can be understood, can be invested in, because they feel like people, not characters.

There’s a lot going on in the interactions between characters as well. There’s the issue of goals versus means. The issue of what is justifiable. There’s a discussion to be had around slavery, and the way that individuals see themselves when they’re torn out of society. There’ssome truly marvellous moments of character epiphany, as an individual assesses where and who they are, and becomes something else. It’s impressive that none of this, or the many other points raised, feel heavy-handed. They slide by as part of the extended narrative, in character  asides or setting descriptions, in the underlying assumptions of dialogue, and the occasional remark. There’s an impressive sense of broader culture here, of societies within which our protagonist find themselves. Alongside the individual portrayals of betrayal, loneliness, compassion and tiny acts of heroism, are societies which defines what those things are – and they leap off the page at the reader alongside the characters which they have shaped.

The plot kicks off pretty much from the close of the first book in the series. It’s not exactly incidental to the characters, but it feels like they drive it, rather than the other way around – and that’s a good thing. It feels like the twists and turns that get thrown out by the plot are growing organically out of character choice. The pacing is spot on – there’s instances of frenetic action, the careful tension of political discussion, the tingling excitement of discovery; the raw, focused horror of murder and the explosive disaster of battle. There’s also the opportunity to get some answers, as the book progresses – by the end, much like the characters, I was beginning to get a feel of the stakes of the game. But the author doesn’t pull any punches, and  I think it’s reasonable to say that by the end of the text, with danger in every shadow (as well as right there in front of them), none of the characters is entirely safe. A lot changes over the course of Empire Ascendant, for the characters and cultures portrayed within it – and the impacts feel seismic, and very real.

Hurley has put together something very special. There are complex characters. There’s a believable, if broken world. There’s a plot which will absolutely knock your socks off, if you’re prepared to let it. But it’s also a book willing to explore more deeply, to challenge reader preconceptions and expectations, to ask the reader to invest themselves, and willing to repay that investment in a mixture of enlightenment and blood. That depth, and that narrative bravery, makes Empire Ascendant not just a very good fantasy novel, but a great one – and one very highly recommended. 

Interstitial - Empire Ascendant

Finished up Kameron Hurley's Empire Ascendant, the sequel to her excellent Mirror Empire from last year.

In quick summary: It's absolutely stunning. Complex characters, believable world, a plot that plays for high stakes and refuses to back away from consequences. Couldn't put it down.

More on that tomorrow.

Luna: New Moon - Ian McDonald

Luna: New Moon is Ian McDonald’s latest sci-fi novel, a thriller set on a moon where everything is for sale, and everything has a price – including the air you breathe. 

I first ran into McDonald’s thoroughly corporate Luna in a short story, in one of Jonathan Strahan’s “Best of Science Fiction…” anthologies. It’s an unforgiving environment, one in which the smallest mistake can kill, and where life is both entirely artificial and extremely fragile. McDonald gives the reader a moon which feels a lot like the depths of the ocean – and then adds mineral riches, and a frontier feel. This is an unfriendly place, brought to life by the people who live, work, and die on it. And those people, at least the ones we see, are pragmatists, corporate raiders, wage slaves and founders of dynasties. Because McDonald’s moon has dynasties – the wonderfully named ‘Five Dragons’, each controlling a vital part of the moon infrastructure, or selling a valuable resource to the Earth that soars overhead. And with dynasties, there’s politics, and family drama, a microcosm of humanity being played out in pressurised bubbles – war and peace in a world which will eliminate the unwary without a qualm, and reward those that risk all and survive. 

The original short story looked at the origins of the youngest of the large Luna corporations, the Corta – who became specialists in Helium3 mining. The novel follows up from that story, shifting the narrative forward in time; the original young protagonist is now the family grandmother, the ancient regime, as it were. Her daughters, sons and grandchildren give us our view onto the world of Luna, a corporate aristocracy. There’s the analytical, driven son – and his more emotional, less focused brother, given to swift rages and swifter laughter. There’s the sister who serves as a divorce lawyer – in a court where everything, including the judges, is negotiable, and trial by combat is a last resort. There’s the odd son, the one partially outside the collective, who meshes with a strange collective of outsiders. They all leap off the page at the reader, filled with complexity, and emotional truth. They may not be particularly pleasant examples of people, but they do feel genuinely human.

McDonald also gives us a view from the bottom. In a world where food, water, air and bandwidth are all billable, there’s room for an underclass. For people educated enough to make it to the moon, but unfortunate enough to be unable to stay. Our view here is given by Marina, who begins the narrative unemployed and rapidly running out of air, takes a job as a waitress at a Corta party – and has a larger impact on the high-flying dynastics than they might expect. Marina is our every-woman, someone outside the social structures, confines and freedoms of the corporate structure – she’s not the only viewpoint character, but perhaps the easiest to empathise with. Much like the others, she’s given her own voice, and feels like an individual, rather than a character.

Between the starkly lethal beauty of the environment, the carefully crafted society where everything is a matter of contract, and the feuding dynastic families, the plot really writes itself. It starts with an assassination attempt, and rarely lets up from there. There’s a wonderful strain of mystery running through the narrative, as well as some carefully crafted strands of family conflict, which had me by turns chuckling at their familiarity and gasping at their consequences. No more for fear of spoilers, but McDonald manages to set up a multi-layered plot, a fusion of family dynamics, character pieces and sweeping action pieces, and bring the whole together seamlessly. It was very, very hard to put this book down. I would say that the end is clearly a set up for the forthcoming sequel – but it’s very well done.

Overall, it’s a really good read – the environment is convincing, the characters wonderfully flawed and entirely believable, and the plot well-paced and gripping. It’ll draw you into its world and refuse to let you out again. If you want to try an innovative piece of sci-fi, with a lot to say and a good means of exploring ways to say it, then this is the book for you.

Interstitial - Luna: New Moon

Tomorrow we've got a review of Ian McDonald's latest sci-fi thriller. It's a wonderful exploration of the moon as a harsh, unforgiving environment, and of corporate dynastic politics. It definitely doesn't pull any punches, and I've enjoyed it a great deal. More tomorrow.